


Soy Milk Latte

by eigengrau



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Post-Yakimono, fancy coffee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-19 19:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1482043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eigengrau/pseuds/eigengrau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's nice to have an old friend for coffee. Spoilers for Yakimono, optimistic AU from the end of the episode on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soy Milk Latte

The scar was ugly, but it could have been worse. Had Miriam Lass been standing just a foot closer, had her aim been at a slightly different angle, she could have blown off his entire jaw, or sent the bullet into his brain and killed him straight out. Or hit his spine. Or the jugular. Or any number of other obstacles packed into his head and neck area.

 

 As it was, he’d needed extensive reconstructive surgery to fix the shattered portions of his jaw and zygomatic arch. And the skin of his cheek, the entry wound, was a puckered scar, pulling one half of his mouth into a tight perpetual half-smile. The effect was disconcerting, to Frederick more than anyone else, and he now spoke with a slight slur, as if he was tipsy all the time. He occasionally ran his fingers over the corresponding scar on the back of his neck, where his hairline had used to end. Hair wouldn’t grow over the scar. His head had been shaved for the surgeries, anyway, and was growing back into an awkward buzz cut. Even three months after his release from incarceration in his own institution, he still looked uneven. He probably would for the rest of his life.

 

He’d lost a fair amount of weight, though, so he had that going for him. It turned out that the most effective way of slimming down for a fairly sedentary forty-three year old man was the “fed-through-a-tube” diet. And he wouldn’t exactly be scaring children on the street or anything. Lopsided though he was, Joseph Merrick he was not.

 

Between the cane, his customary suits, and the scar, he looked like a Bond villain. Freddie told him so when he sat down across from her at the café where they’d arranged to meet.

 

“Yes, well, I feel like Jaws,” he said softly, lowering his voice as if it would make the way his tongue fumbled around his mouth less noticeable. It didn’t. “Half of the teeth on the left side of my mouth are fake.”

 

“You don’t look _bad._ ” She raised an eyebrow. “I’ve seen worse.”

 

“You take photos of dead people for a living.” He countered. She shrugged.

 

A tall, chiseled waiter in a blue apron came over with two cups on the verge of spilling. “Ok, one latte for Freddie and one for—“ He turned and saw Chilton. His toothy grin faltered.

 

“Also Freddie,” the redhead cocked her head and took her mug. Chilton took his, glaring.

 

“Frederick,” he corrected.

 

“Ah.” The waiter seemed to sense that his presence was unwanted. “Well, enjoy your drinks.”

 

“Thanks, Taylor!” Freddie called after him as he scurried back behind the counter to the safety of the other baristas. Frederick shot her a look.

 

“Come here often, do we?”

 

“He makes a mean latte. Try it, you’ll like it.”

 

Frederick eyed the drink suspiciously. “Soy milk?”

 

She raised her mug in a toast. It wasn’t reciprocated, but he took a careful sip, then nodded.

 

They had met for the first time under less than ideal circumstances, and all their meetings after that had followed in a similar fashion. Whether this was simply bad luck or a sign that the two of them had been cursed by some cruel deity (whose name may or may not have been Hannibal Lecter), unfortunate events seemed the follow their encounters like a particularly clingy dog with a penchant for pissing on everything to mark his territory.

 

Speaking of Will Graham, Chilton thought sourly, brushing imaginary dog hair off the leg of his pants before taking another sip of his latte.

 

He had read her blog before they met, of course. Anyone who worked in the field of “crazies and killers” (her words, not his) tended to know each other, at least tangentially. Six Degrees of Psycho Separation, if you will. Frederick had a habit of checking the website to see if he or any of his current patients were mentioned. Often the patients were, as was the hospital. But the articles tended to cover the murders, the victims, the trials, or the killers themselves. Most useful to Frederick were these profiles of the murderers. Frederick liked to consider them casual research, an easy, quick lowdown on the people under his charge without the hassle of wading through a police report. They were like… serial killer Cliff Notes. Or something.

 

His own name tended not to show up. But he had kept reading, just in case it did appear one day. Hopefully next to a flattering photograph. He worked hard to make sure that _all_ photographs taken of him were flattering.

 

That said, he had of course denied Freddie Lounds access to any of the patients who were actually under his care at the time of her reporting, with the singular exception of Abel Gideon. And look how that had turned out. He had finally ended up on the home page of tattlecrime.com, and there had been no photo of him next to the article, as internal organs were, Freddie had explained to him in the hospital after they had sewn him back up, generally considered NSFW.

 

The second time that he had appeared on tattlecrime.com, the photo had, blessedly, been an old one, taken for a piece in the Journal of Criminal Psychology that never ran. It had only been a few months ago, and seeing his face—unblemished and symmetrical, not quite the face he saw in the mirror anymore—next to the headline, “Slasher Or Scapegoat?!” had given him a considerable boost in mood. Jack Crawford had visited him in his cell at the BSH (and God, how humiliating had that been, locked up in his own hospital) and glared at him as he handed over the printed-out webpage. “Looks like you have a friend out there,” he had grumbled.

 

Frederick could have kissed Freddie on the mouth for that.

 

When he had finally been cleared and released, soon after the article had run and Hannibal Lecter had been FINALLY confirmed as the Ripper, Crawford had sent him an apology note. He hadn’t even come in person. Probably too embarrassed. He had, after all, arrested a vegan on suspicion of being a cannibal.

 

 _It RHYMED_ , Frederick thought to himself for the millionth time, tightening his grip on the coffee cup. Freddie noticed his white knuckles.

 

“Easy there.” She laid a hand on his, guiding him to set the cup down. “Have you been getting out at all?”

 

He shook his head. “I have my groceries delivered. I do all my banking online. I’ve been catching up on my Netflix cue and sleeping a lot.”

 

“Jesus.” Her usual Mona Lisa smile twisted down at the corner. Frederick avoided her eyes and went back to his latte.

 

“I should have called earlier.”

 

“I wouldn’t have agreed to go out earlier.”

 

“I could have just come over to your place.”

 

He grimaced. “I have a new place. An apartment.”

 

“What happened to the house?

 

He shot her a look. “Three people were murdered there. There was blood all over the place. Gideon’s _torso_ was in my _wine cellar_.”

 

"And Will Graham only threw up an ear.”

 

“That was exactly what I said!” Frederick nearly shouted, then winced in pain and rubbed his cheek gingerly. The people at the next table over gave them a worried glance.

 

“I think he feels bad that he called Crawford on you. I’m sure he didn’t think you’d get shot.”

 

“He _should_ feel bad,” Frederick muttered.

           

Freddie finished her drink and lowered it into its saucer carefully. “Have you heard at all from Miriam…?”

 

“No, and I don’t want to.” He snapped, the slur more pronounced. “Talk about something else.”

 

Freddie may have been the worst sort of nosy, but she knew when to let a subject go. “Kim Kardashian got married again.” She offered. Frederick stared at her.

 

“Why on Earth would you think that would be something I cared about?”

 

She shrugged. “You said to talk about something else.”

 

He laughed. He did it with his mouth half closed, looking like it hurt him a little, but it was an actual laugh. She smiled.

 

Back behind the counter, Taylor the latte boy watched them. _What a weird pair_ , he thought to himself, and then, _SHIT!_ As the cappuccino machine overflowed and burned his hand.


End file.
